We've been singing praises of the Galaxy S23 Ultra ever since it got announce and we got the chance to use it. The Galaxy S23 Ultra is the same as the Galaxy S22 Ultra in most regards, but it leaves the S22 Ultra biting the dust in both performance and battery life. Much of the credit for that goes to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip that Samsung has optimized for the Galaxy S23 series by working together with Qualcomm.
For me, the insanely good battery life is the major draw, because it's not like the Galaxy S22 Ultra or any Samsung flagship from the last 2-3 years is slow. Far from it, actually. My Galaxy S20 Ultra is still a fast and smooth device, especially after being updated to Android 13 and One UI 5.0 and despite having the problematic Exynos 990 chipset powering it.
And thanks to how phenomenal the battery life is on this phone, the Galaxy S23 Ultra gives you an important benefit, one that only Samsung's mid-range phones could do till now. That benefit is the fact that the S23 Ultra is the first flagship from Samsung that you don't need to charge to 100% before stepping out of the house for a few hours.
Galaxy S23 Ultra makes it less crucial to charge the battery to 100%
The Galaxy S23 Ultra's excellent power efficiency has been apparent to me — and pretty much everyone else who's been using it — since day one. And for the first few days I charged it to 100% every time the battery drained to critical levels to test how long the phone can last after it's fully juiced up. But since at least the last 5-6 days, my S23 Ultra has not been charged to 100% a single time.
In fact, I don't think I have even charged the battery beyond 50% these last few days. It's because I now know that should I need to step out for a few hours (I frequently go to movie theaters, for example, with my next visit set for this Friday to watch Marvel's new Ant-Man movie), the Galaxy S23 Ultra will not run out of juice as quickly as its predecessors.
Before 2023, only Samsung's mid-range phones, thanks to their humble hardware specs and big batteries, gave me the confidence that I wouldn't be left without a working phone because I didn't charge it enough before leaving the house. But we can finally add a flagship to the list of Samsung smartphones that don't make you anxious when you don't manage to charge it fully or even to 50% and won't have access to a charger for a while.
Fingers crossed this becomes a theme across all top-end Galaxy phones going forward. Because frankly, it is ridiculous how even with 5,000 mAh batteries Samsung's flagships have been unable to impress users as far as battery life is concerned till now.
Hopefully the Galaxy S23 Ultra is the start of something special and Samsung will not drop the ball going ahead by, you know, doing things like bringing back those dreaded Exynos chips unless the company is absolutely certain those chips are a match for Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors.
